1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to lithographic processes and, in particular, to lithographic processes involving device fabrication.
2. Art Background
Lithographic processes are typically employed in the manufacture of devices such as semiconductor devices. Among the lithographic processes that are available, photolithography is often utilized. Photolithographic processes have the advantage of being suitable for a blanket exposure technique. That is, a material that is sensitive to the exposing light is coated onto a substrate, e.g., a silicon wafer, that is being processed to form a plurality of devices. The coating material, i.e., the resist, is then subjected to light that has been passed through a mask material so that the light reaching the resist corresponds to a desired pattern that is to be transferred into the underlying substrate. Since the exposure occurs simultaneously over an entire device or a number of devices being processed on a substrate, e.g., a silicon substrate, the procedure is considered a blanket exposure.
A blanket exposure procedure is advantageous because it is relatively fast compared to other methods such as the raster scan technique usually employed when the energy used to expose the resist is a beam of electrons. However, generally, resolution obtainable through a blanket exposure with ultraviolet or visible light is somewhat poorer than that achieved with other methods such as electron lithography.
Improved resolution with a blanket exposure is achievable by using deep ultraviolet light. One approach to a photo resist sensitive to deep ultraviolet radiation employs a compound that produces an acid moiety upon irradiation with such radiation together with a polymer that reacts with the generated acid. Typical acid generator/acid sensitive polymer combinations include an onium salt as the photosensitive acid generator and a polymer such as poly(p-t-butoxycarbonyloxystyrene) as the polymer having a reactive substituent.
The use of an inorganic salt such as the onium salt as the acid generator is not entirely desirable. There is a possibility of contamination of the device being processed by inorganic ionic species from the salt. Additionally, ionic acid generators also have the tendency to phase separate from the acid sensitive resin. Therefore organic acid generators having reasonable sensitivity to deep ultraviolet light for use in a photo resist are quite desirable.